On the way to Nandi Hills, I noticed signs everywhere for the arrival of Sonia Gandhi
Out of curiousity I started looking into who she was and discovered some interesting (& somewhat scandalous) bits of Indian political history.
Sonia is is an Italian-born Indian politician, the President of the Indian National Congress and the widow of former Prime Minister of India,
Rajiv Gandhi. In 2004, Forbes magazine named her the 3rd most powerful woman in the world. There was some controversy in 2004 where she almost became Prime Minister, which you can read more about
hereWhat's more interesting is her husband's lineage.
Her husband, Rajiv
became was Prime Minister of India until he was assassinated in 1991 by a suicide bomber from the LTTE, a separatist group from Sri Lanka.
His mother
Indira Gandhi was the first woman Prime Minister of India, until she was assassinated.
A bit of background: During problems in Punjab, a local religious leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was first set up by the local Congress to replace another party but once his activities turned violent he was excoriated as an extremist and a separatist. Indira Gandhi gave the Army permission to storm the Golden Temple to flush out Bhindranwale and his followers on June 3, 1984. Many Sikhs were outraged at the perceived desecration of their holiest shrine, which remains controversial in terms of timing and effect to this day.
Indira was assassinated by
2 of her own Sikh bodyguards. As she passed a gate guarded by the two men when she bent down to greet them in traditional Indian style, they opened fire with their semiautomatic machine pistols.
Her life is interesting in several ways, but especially how she came to have the last name Gandhi. Naturally I assumed she was somehow related to Mahatma Gandhi, but came to find out there was no direct relation.
Indira met and fell in love with Feroze Khan.
However, if she were to marry Feroze, she would lose the possibility of become heir to her family's political dynasty (her father was the first Prime Minister of India) because Feroze was a Muslim. Indira's father was a close confidant of Mahatma Gandhi. So according to one story,
Mahatma Gandhi intervened and adopted Feroze Khan, gave him his last name (family name/caste name) and got the name of Feroz Khan changed to Feroz Gandhi by an affidavit in England.
Just a little history lesson from me to you!
